


pity you? never

by loverloverlover



Category: Addicted Series - Krista Ritchie & Becca Ritchie, Calloway Sisters - Krista Ritchie & Becca Ritchie, Like Us Series - Krista Ritchie & Becca Ritchie
Genre: Angst, F/M, Healthy Communication, Hurt/Comfort, I mean it, Mentions of past drug use, lunnelly, tangled like us, when i say i'm trash for these characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 13:50:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21303113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loverloverlover/pseuds/loverloverlover
Summary: luna finds out about donnelly's rough past, and they talk about it. based on 'bonus scene #24: halloween party aftermath (farrow)' from kirsta and becca ritchie's patreon account. [trigger warning for mentions of past drug abuse]
Relationships: Lily Calloway/Loren Hale (mentioned), Luna Hale/Paul Donnelly
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14
Collections: the lunnelly diaries





	pity you? never

**Author's Note:**

> this is un-beta'd, but i love her anyway. if you see a grammatical error, mind ya business kjsdks. just kidding, just kidding, please enjoy :)
> 
> the italics at the beginning are from kbr’s patreon! i live off of their short stories and podcasts, y’all should check it out.

_I lower my voice to a deep whisper. “You really want to spend another month, two months, or year seeing your client snort coke? What’s more painful: watching that shit or losing Beckett as a client?” I don’t mention that Beckett could quit using for him._

_Donnelly doesn’t believe he will since Beckett won’t even quit for his twin brother._

_He rubs the back of his neck. “I dunno. The first one, I guess.”_

_Oscar pats his shoulder. “You want to talk to him with us?”_

_He stares haunted at the floor, then shakes his head. “Nah, I can’t.” His eyes ping from me to Oscar. “Will you guys just do it?”_

* * *

Luna wasn’t one to gossip, even amongst her family. She’d found herself at the ass-end of too many rumors, and both her and her family have been the ridicule of too many a tabloid over the years for her to find anything fun in the gossiping-practice. So, she _hated_ gossip. She was fantastic at keeping secrets and a great listener to those who needed an ear because they knew that what they told her would never be heard by another soul. She always tried to avoid gossip in her private life—that, at least, she could semi-control—but this wasn’t something that she could ignore.

She’d tried, _tried_ to push it to the back of her mind, but all she could think about were her parents. About how the two strongest people in her life had dealt with something similar—were still dealing with something similar. She couldn’t stop thinking about how even though her parents had overcome their addictions and were happy and healthy today, they didn’t used to be. They used to be in a really dark place, and she hated to think that Donnelly may have been in the same boat once-upon-a-time.

She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop the other night, truly she hadn’t. She’d known that it wasn’t her place, but once she’d heard Donnelly’s name through the crack in the door, she couldn’t help but linger. Over the past few weeks, she’d noticed his strange behavior—though he’d likely always behaved that way, and she’s just now close enough to him to be able to notice that it’s decidedly _not_ normal—and she was desperate for some kind of explanation. Donnelly’d always been an extremely private person about the things that matter, something that she wouldn’t have expected of him given almost _everything_ about him, and getting any _real_ information out of him about his life was worse than pulling teeth. So, when she’d heard that fated line come out of Oscar’s mouth— _“his parents made him smoke meth when he was fourteen”_—so many things about him fell into place.

She didn’t know if he was ever addicted to it—meth, that is—but she had enough tabs open on her laptop at the moment to know what the statistics are. That even if he hated drugs, and never wanted to take them again after he was forced to the first time, chances are that he did it anyway. She was aware that both of his parents were in jail, but now she knew the _why_ of it all. Luna couldn’t help but think that she’d been better off in the dark because she’d had a constant pit in her stomach ever since she’d found out. Now she couldn’t unlearn these details about him, and she wasn’t sure how to handle the fact that _he doesn’t know that she knows._ (Luna didn’t even want to get into what she now knew about Beckett—that was a whole other beast.)

Luna snapped her laptop closed and groaned as she rolled over onto her back. Staring at the springs of the bunk above her—and at the plastic glow in the dark stars that she’d tied to the wiring—she couldn’t think of how to handle any of this.

“Sulli?” Luna asked. Her cousin, who was likely popping out her headphones at the sound of Luna’s voice, was on the bunk above her. “I have a hypothetical that requires your expertise.”

“Lay it on me, sister,” Sulli replied.

“So, someone you… well someone you _like_ had a…” Luna sucked in a breath, tried to reorganize her thoughts, and began again. “Someone you like had an unfortunate childhood—to say the least—and they’re still dealing with a lot of the, shall we say, ramifications of that childhood. They also used to do drugs, but you don’t know how often or anything, and now they can’t be around other people who use drugs without it… I don’t know, triggering bad memories. Also, you know all of this information _not_ because this person told you, but because you’re a horrible sneak and overheard all of it when you weren’t supposed to.”

“A hypothetical, eh?” Sulli asked.

“Yeah, it’s for a new story,” Luna said quickly. “About an alien, and the girl she meets when she crash-lands on earth. What I need to know is, if you were in my… character’s situation, what would you do?”

“Fuck, Lu, I don’t know.” Sulli sighed. “Is it a romantic thing… a friendship thing…?”

“Somewhere in-between, I guess,” Luna responded. “I haven’t decided where I want to take it yet… but with the personality my character has, I think they’d handle it the same no matter what type of relationship it was.”

Sulli made a contemplative noise, and Luna was weirdly grateful that she didn’t have to look at her cousin while she debated her answer. Luna knew that her face would betray her personal involvement in this ‘hypothetical’ immediately. It wasn’t as though she didn’t trust her cousin with the truth, it’s just that Luna wasn’t even supposed to know about it. Adding another person in the loop seemed wrong. (And again, _gossip.)_

“Personally, I’m not quite sure if I would let on that I know anything,” Sulli eventually said. “If you haven’t noticed, I enjoy running from relationship problems.”

Luna and Sulli both laughed quietly.

“But I would probably just fucking try to be there for them without letting on that I know anything out of the ordinary. But _then_ I’d probably feel like shit for not saying anything, and I’d over compensate so much that it would all blow up in my fucking face. So I guess my actual advice would be somewhere in the middle? Don’t know what that fucking means, exactly, but there it is.”

Luna hummed in acknowledgement.

“So, they should maybe bait the other person? That way, the other person would bring it up and _then_ they could talk about it?” Luna summarized weakly.

“Now _that_would be a cluster-fuck,” Sulli snorted. “But maybe you can spin that so you can extend your story—add some more of that fucking angst you’re always raving about.”

“Yeah, _angst,”_ Luna muttered. “Because I need more of that.”

.:..:.

Halloween came and went, and she still didn’t see Donnelly. She’d decided this may be for the best, since she still hadn’t a clue how she’d broach the topic, but she’d also found herself antsy to get everything out there. Her dad’s birthday was a family only event this year—which was the day after she figured everything out—so Farrow was the only bodyguard present. And then Sulli told her that Beckett got a new bodyguard, which she’d expected. Someone named O’Malley had replaced Donnelly and Donnelly’d spent the last week or so going through all the bodyguard transfer shit that Luna didn’t altogether understand. Now, though, all the switching was supposedly behind him, and Xander told her yesterday that Donnelly was going to be his other full-time bodyguard—which meant that he was going to be at her house when she saw her parents for dinner tonight.

Luna hasn’t even _texted_ him since she’d gone to bed the night of Xander’s fight—they hadn’t yet gotten to the stage in their… entanglement where they did that regularly, nor were they the type of people who were reliant upon their phones anyway. If anything, they were used to actual phone calls, and she would admit that she enjoyed hearing his voice and would rather have that than a text message she could over-analyze. So, sue her if she actually ran a brush through her hair before pulling on her sneakers.

Now, she was seated in the backseat of one of security’s SUVs. Farrow was in the driver’s seat—Moffy was next to him, her brother leaning over the console towards his fiancé slightly—and there was another SUV behind them that was cutting off the paparazzi like pros. Whenever she rode with security, which was pretty much always, they usually ditched the paparazzi as soon as they could, but when they were going to her parents’ house, it was pretty much useless to try and ditch them. It always made the rides longer.

Before she knew it, though, they were pulling into the driveway of her childhood home. Luna was the first one to hop out of the vehicle, and then she regretted her eagerness immediately when she knew she'd likely have to face Donnelly as soon as she stepped through the foyer.

She pretended to tie her shoelace.

“Lulu!” Kinney called from her window on the second floor. “Get your _behind_ in here, I have _things_ to discuss with you. _Girl things.”_

“Girl-_y_ things, or _girl_ things,” Luna called back, standing up and smiling. God, she loved her sister

_“Girl_ things!” Kinney replied. “As in _Holly_ things, and it’s in your job description as my big sis’ to give me relationship advice.”

Luna shook her head as she followed her family, and soon-to-be family, into the house. She gave her mom a tight hug as soon as she saw her. It’s always slipping Luna’s mind that she’s taller than her mom now, and if she wants to be hugged as if she were still small, she has to bend her knees so her mom can pull her in properly. Her dad was next, and he was still the same. He was still stern looking and his eyes were still hard, but Luna had observed a certain softness in him and his expressions over the years that the public never has and never will. He messes up her hair—so much for that brush—and pulls her in for a hug before lightly pushing her towards the staircase.

“Hello, I love you and it’s good to see you, but _please_ go help your sister so she doesn’t attempt anymore summoning circles,” he said in greeting. “They freak your mother out.”

“Hey!” her mom exclaimed. “You weren’t supposed to say that! This is _group_ effort, Lo, you can’t _expose_ me.”

Before her dad could respond, her mom punched him in his shoulder, like she was known to do, and he mock winced—as he was known to do. He kissed her lips twice in quick succession and pulled her into his chest before using his free hand to shake Farrow’s in greeting. Luna took this opportunity to bound up the stairs towards Kinney’s room. And, of course, she knew that she’d have to pass Xander’s door-less room to get there, but she didn’t fully process that she could make eye-contact with Donnelly through the entryway.

But they did, of course they did, and she stopped in her tracks and just looked at him. They’d only been hooking up for a few weeks now, and it’s been a really sporadic thing, which Luna doesn’t mind—she prefers it, actually. He’s seated on one of Xander’s bean bag chairs, his thinly muscled—and heavily tattooed—arms braced on his knees. He’s got a line of piercings up the side of his ear, and though she can’t see it from here, she knew one of them was a little green alien stud that he snagged from her dresser. Really, it’s sort of all Donnelly’s fault that her plan for a series of random one-night stands had turned into a series of one-night stands with _only him._ He’s just too attractive for his own good, and she’d landed solidly on the Paul Donnelly train.

Realizing that she’d been staring at him for a solid half-minute now, Luna jerked out of her thoughts with a shake of her head—which he, of course, interpreted as, “hey, follow me, you great tattooed lug!”

Too late to chicken out now, and trying to organize Sulli’s subpar advice—though she’d cut her cousin some slack, as Sulli didn’t realize that it wasn’t a hypothetical—Luna backed into her room across the way from Xander’s, and left the door open behind her. Kinney and her Holly-esq problems, no matter how much Luna loved her, could wait.

She was facing away from the door, biting her nails—a nervous habit she hadn’t done since middle school—when the door snicked shut and locked quietly behind her. She spun at once to look at him and forced herself to drop her hands to her sides.

“Hi,” she greeted quietly.

“Hi…?” Donnelly replied cautiously, sensing her unusual awkwardness. “What’s wrong?”

“I have to… um, I have to tell you something.” Luna grimaced.

“Anything,” he assured, taking a few steps into the room and sitting down on her childhood bed—_now that was an image,_ her brain side-tracked.

She moved to stand in front of him, so she could look at him while she spoke, and he fell into his casual touches that Luna had come to both expect and cherish. She was standing in-between his open legs and his hands were warm from their place on the backs of her thighs—his thumbs were slowly sweeping back and forth, and she got a little tingly all over. Luna placed her hands on his shoulders and took a deep breath.

“I—_oof!”_ Donnelly’s lips cut her off before she could even begin—not that she was complaining. His lips were soft, and he was gentle, and his hands clenched on her legs for the briefest of moments. She instinctively stepped closer into his embrace, and one of her hands travelled up into his hair. When she thought about what she was about to bring up, she pressed in tighter and his hand settled on his favorite place—he was a self-proclaimed ‘ass-man’ after all. She leaned her forehead against his as they breathed each other’s air for a moment. It was a relatively short kiss—for them, anyway—but it left her no less breathless. She loved when he kissed her. There was a particular way he held her close, a gentle-firmness to his hands and an overwhelming eagerness to his lips, that always made her melt into him.

“Sorry,” he breathed, pulling back to better look her in the eyes. “You can start now.”

He was grinning at her so openly—his single dimple making its lauded appearance—that she couldn’t help but smile back. Luna ran an affectionate hand through his hair and then trailed her finger tips softly over his jaw. She took another deep breath.

“I overheard something the other day,” she started, deciding to dive right in. “Something that I probably shouldn’t have heard, but did anyways, and now I want you to know.”

“Know what?” He looked more serious now—worried, even—but she was comforted when he didn’t remove his hands from her body or pull away. He just tilted his head and waited patiently for her to continue.

“I heard Oscar and Farrow talking to Beckett in security’s townhouse,” she said quietly. He stiffened under her hands, obviously knowing what she was talking about, so she barreled on quickly. “I’m _so_ sorry, but I did and now I can’t unknow what I know, and I want _you_ to know, and–”

“Shh, just give me a sec,” he requested. “What _exactly_ did you hear?”

“I know what your parents are in jail for,” she began quietly—slowly. “I know that you struggle with being around hard drugs, and I know that your parents made you take meth when you were younger.”

He trembled minutely under her touch, and he leaned forward to rest his head between her breasts. She felt him exhale heavily—his breath warm through her thin t-shirt—and she kept her hand securely in his hair, holding him closely and in place.

“I don’t use anymore,” he said into her chest. “Not since my parents got locked up, and I left high school. Farrow got me clean for good when I was seventeen—he sent my grandmom on a vacation and locked me in her apartment for three whole weeks, drove me up the fucking walls with his rambling. Then I went to stay with him at Yale… and we met Oscar… and life… well, life moved on—whether I wanted it to or not.”

Donnelly pulled back to look at her, but then urged her closer so the distance between them didn’t really change. Her eyes felt hot at both his words and the distant look on his face right then, but she knew Donnelly wouldn’t want her tears. She refused to let them fall.

“I know you don’t use,” she confirmed. “That’s not why I brought it up, I promise. I brought it up because I felt… _slimy_ that I knew, but that you hadn’t been the one to tell me—not that I’m upset you didn’t! You just needed to know I knew. I couldn’t keep it from you.”

He just nodded.

“Can I ask you a question?” she asked after a few moments of silence. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

“Shoot, Luna,” he assented.

“Will you tell me when things get rough for you?” she asked quickly, her words coming out in a rush. Then she began again without giving him time to answer, “I’ve spent the last week researching all of this ‘till my eyes felt like they’d fall out, and I know that experiences you had while you were high—especially if-if it’s surrounded by other trauma—can be triggered by random things. I also read about the common types of hallucinations, and it made me think about when you gave me those ideas for that fic about a month ago? About the… um, _shadow people?”_

When he replied this time, he looked both ten years younger and twenty years older. His expression was hard to reconcile.

“Well, my folks were always going on and on about the ‘shadow people,’” he began. “Even when I was five or six, I had nightmares about them coming into my room and stealing me away… even though all I really wanted was to be taken away. My parents would also go on these week long binges, and they’d try to keep me awake right along with them—then I used for the first time, and I guess it had to do with proximity or some shit? Or maybe I was already a paranoid fuck, so adding a hallucinogenic just amplified my own anxieties and made a _real_ mess of everything. Anyway, I started seeing the shadow people too, and these days—when I’ve had a particularly bad day, or when I haven’t slept well in a while, or-or when I see other people—people I _know_—take drugs… they-they pop back up.”

“Paul,” she whispered, cupping his cheek gently.

“I don’t want pity,” he said, looking up at her strongly. But still, he didn’t pull away. “And to answer your question—if you _really_ want me to, I can tell you when it’s a bad day. I mean, after we leave this room, I don’t want to talk about this for _at least_ another decade, but I’ll tell you when it’s bad, Lu. Promise.”

“Thank you,” she said.

This time, _she_ kissed him. This kiss, somehow, felt _more_ than any other kiss they’d ever shared, and it was the first time Luna felt that she _might_ actually be in a relationship with him after all. It was, for lack of a better word, a messy kiss—all bumped teeth and mashed noses and hot breaths—but it was so utterly real that a single tear finally escaped from behind her closed eyelid.

A banging at the door startled them apart, and Luna almost jumped clear out of her skin. She _did_ jump away from Donnelly, but he stood and followed her movements because he, of course, remembered that he’d locked the door.

“Luna Hale!” her sister yelled. “When I said ‘things,’ I should’ve said _emergency things!_ Get out here, _please.”_

“Yeah, I’m coming!” Luna said roughly. She cleared her throat.

Donnelly used his thumb to wipe away her tear, and then he lightly kissed where it had tracked its way down her cheek. He patted her butt twice, and almost (almost) all traces of their previous conversation were gone from his face when he said, “I’ll wait a minute and then follow you out when no one’s paying attention.”

She smiled to show she understood. He flopped back down on her bed, hands behind his head and his feet still planted on the floor—_Luna no,_ she thought, _you must resist the urge to join him or your father _will_ find you in here together_—and she walked to the door alone. With her hand on the knob, she turned back to him.

“And Paul,” she called. As she knew she preferred to be called ‘Donnelly,’ she rarely (almost never) used his first name, but in times like this it felt not only right, but important that she called him ‘Paul.’ He lifted his head and raised an eyebrow at her, one of his arms still behind his head and his bicep nicely outlined.

“Pity you?” Her lips titled up just the smallest amounts at the corners. _“Never.”_

Luna turned the lock and opened the door.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! comments and kudos will give me the strength to do my english hw jskdjs  
_______
> 
> 11/12/19 update: so??? canon??? i apparently don't know her sjdksj i just finished a reread of dlu and was proven wrong on so many occasions. maybe i'll tweak this later but for now i've taken more than a few liberties when i didn't mean to. anyway, still hope you enjoyed :)
> 
> 5/7/20 update: she's updated *finger gins*
> 
> 8/14/20 update: me again. it's ya gurl, quarantine edition. i'm so idle and full of boredom that i added bits to this and edited everything else - _again_


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